Author: Sunfire

Mail.com

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil (AP) — An appellate court judge on Wednesday voted to increase the jail time for a graft conviction against former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the first of three judges to weigh in on a case that could impact the presidential elections and even stability in Latin America’s largest nation.

After hearing arguments from both the prosecution and defense, Judge Joao Pedro Gebran Neto said da Silva’s jail time should be 12 years and one month, an increase of more than two years over the sentence leveled in July.  Continue reading “Future of Brazil’s da Silva, elections, at stake in case”

RT

A Tesla Model S has rear-ended a fire truck parked on a freeway in the US. The driver, however, says it wasn’t his fault, blaming the state-of-the-art technology instead.

On Monday morning, the Tesla car, going 65mph, hit a parked fire truck, the Culver City Fire Department tweeted. The firefighters were there attending to a “freeway accident,” when their truck was hit by the electric-powered vehicle, which was travelling on autopilot, according to the driver. The truck apparently sustained only minor damage, while the hood of the Tesla seems almost completely smashed.   Continue reading “Whose fault? Tesla crashes into fire truck, driver blames autopilot”

Mail.com

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck down the state’s widely criticized congressional map Monday, granting a major victory to Democrats who alleged the 18 districts were unconstitutionally gerrymandered to benefit Republicans and setting off a scramble to draw a new map.

In the Democratic-controlled court’s decision, the majority said the boundaries “clearly, plainly and palpably” violate the state’s constitution and blocked the boundaries from remaining in effect for the 2018 elections with just weeks until dozens of people file paperwork to run for Congress.   Continue reading “Pennsylvania court throws out congressional boundaries”

Mail.com

The gun industry is holding its biggest annual trade show this week just a few miles from where a gunman slaughtered 58 concertgoers outside his high-rise Las Vegas hotel room in October using a display case worth of weapons, many of them fitted with bump stocks that enabled them to mimic fully automatic fire.

What exactly will be among the thousands of products crammed into the exhibition spaces at the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s SHOT Show convention, running from Tuesday through Friday, will be a bit of a mystery, shielded from the public and, this year, members of the general-interest media.  Continue reading “Gun industry gathers just a few miles from mass shooting”

Mail.com

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 8.2 struck off Alaska’s Kodiak Island early Tuesday, prompting a tsunami warning for a large swath of coastal Alaska and Canada’s British Columbia while the remainder of the U.S. West Coast was under a watch.

The strong earthquake hit at 12:32 a.m. and was recorded about 175 miles southeast of Kodiak Island. Warnings from the National Weather Service sent to cellphones in Alaska warned: “Emergency Alert. Tsunami danger on the coast. Go to high ground or move inland.”   Continue reading “Alaska earthquake prompts tsunami warning; no wave reported”

RT

Social networking sites have embedded themselves into our daily existence, brought our private lives closer together, and changed the way in which we communicate and interact. But are they a force for good or ill?

My grandparents announced major life events and kept in touch with family and friends through letters and face to face contact. My parents had access to landline telephones which they used to contact friends, arrange parties and share the latest gossip at a speed with which the previous generation was unfamiliar. Such modes of communication appear archaic and unfashionable when compared with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the many other social media platforms that nowadays enable an individual to willingly, or otherwise, share every detail of their lives with friends and strangers. As a teenager I had at my fingertips the tools to instantly communicate with friends, family and even strangers anywhere in the world via chatrooms, Skype and Yahoo messenger.  Continue reading “Degeneration App: Never being offline is a double-edged sword”

Mail.com

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Bob Meyers doesn’t want partial justice for his brother. He wants full justice. And to him, that means leaving D.C. sniper Lee Boyd Malvo’s sentence just the way it is: life in prison, with no chance of ever getting out.

A federal judge has given a glimmer of hope to Malvo, who was 17 when he was arrested in the random shootings that killed 10 people and wounded three in and around the nation’s capital. The judge ruled that Malvo is entitled to new sentencing hearings, now that the U.S. Supreme Court has made its ban on mandatory life-without-parole for juvenile offenders retroactive, extending it to people who were already sentenced before it ruled that such punishments are unconstitutional.   Continue reading “Appeals court to hear arguments on DC sniper’s sentence”

Mail.com

ATLANTA (AP) — President Donald Trump hasn’t backed away from his unsubstantiated claim that millions of illegally cast ballots cost him the popular vote in 2016, but his efforts to investigate it appear to have stalled.

He transferred the work of the commission investigating his claim to the Department of Homeland Security. This week, the department’s top official made it clear that, when it comes to elections, her focus is on safeguarding state and local voting systems from cyberattacks and other manipulation.   Continue reading “Trump’s attempts to show voter fraud appear to have stalled”

RT

Climate change predictions making alarming claims on Earth’s future have been challenged by a new study. Suggestions the planet’s surface will warm by 5° Celsius by 2100 are not realistic, according to a team of scientists.

Frightening climate change predictions by the UN would be void if the group from the University of Exeter is correct. Their probe into greenhouse gases pushing up the planet’s temperatures found possible end-of-century outcomes to be only half the range found by others.  Continue reading “End of world? British scientists challenge UN global warming predictions”

Mail.com

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A small-town medical examiner has given Democrats across the country another shot of hope heading into the fall election by upsetting a Republican legislator in a conservative Wisconsin state Senate district.

Patty Schachtner’s victory Tuesday over state Rep. Adam Jarchow marks the 34th legislative seat that has flipped from Republican to Democrat nationwide since President Donald Trump took office last year, according to the national Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, signaling backlash against Trump could fuel a Democratic wave in November.  Continue reading “Democrat’s upset in Wisconsin race sparks hope elsewhere”

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HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — A man who became known as Houston’s “Tourniquet Killer” because of his signature murder technique on four female victims more than two decades ago is set to become the nation’s first prisoner executed in 2018.

Texas prison officials Thursday evening are scheduled to give Anthony Allen Shore, 55, lethal injection for the 1992 strangling of a 21-year-old woman whose body was dumped in the drive-thru of a Dairy Queen in Houston.  Continue reading “Texas ‘Tourniquet Killer’ set to be 1st US execution in 2018”

RT

With just six gargantuan companies controlling the US media landscape, it is incumbent upon these institutions to provide a high level of journalistic ethics and standards. It appears they are failing dramatically on both scores.

A bit like imperial Rome, which bit off so much territory it eventually succumbed to dissent and ultimate disintegration, the US mainstream media also appears to be suffering from severe overstretch.   Continue reading “From plagiarism to fake news, US mainstream media has lost the plot”

Mail.com

HONOLULU (AP) — The Federal Emergency Management Agency said the state of Hawaii didn’t need federal approval to retract a cellphone alert mistakenly sent over the weekend warning of a ballistic missile attack.

Hawaii has had the authority to cancel or retract warnings since 2012, when it applied for access to the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System, FEMA said in a statement. Hawaii Emergency Management Agency spokesman Richard Rapoza said Tuesday his agency asked FEMA for clarification on Saturday about whether rescinding an alert was an appropriate use of the warning system.   Continue reading “FEMA: Hawaii didn’t need approval to retract missile alert”

Mail.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve says U.S. industrial production rose 0.9 percent in December, pulled higher by a surge in utility output, another sign of health for the American economy. Utility production shot up 5.6 percent last month, the most since March 2017, as Americans turned up the heat during a year-end cold snap in the East and Midwest. Manufacturing output edged up 0.1 percent, the fourth straight monthly increase, helped by a healthy uptick in production of cars, trucks and auto parts. Mining production rose 1.6 percent, largely because of an increase in extraction of oil and natural gas.   Continue reading “US industrial production rose 0.9 percent in December”

Mail.com

MIAMI (AP) — A pilot who once smuggled tons of drugs for Colombian cartels during Miami’s “cocaine cowboys” era in the 1980s was convicted Wednesday of playing a key role in an auto fraud ring that stole at least 150 cars using a fake paper trail.

A federal jury found Mickey Munday, 72, guilty of mail fraud and conspiracy charges, each of which carries a maximum 20-year prison sentence. Several others in the fraud ring previously pleaded guilty and testified against Munday, saying his role was transporting the cars and hiding them until they could be sold.   Continue reading “‘Cocaine cowboys’ smuggler convicted in auto fraud case”

RT

US President Donald Trump has denied being “racist” in the wake of a scandal and wide condemnation triggered by his alleged reference to Haiti and African nations as “s***holes” amid attempts to reach a deal on immigrant children.

“I’m not a racist. I am the least racist person you have ever interviewed, that I can tell you,” Trump told reporters on Sunday in Florida, where he was having dinner with Republican House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy.   Continue reading “‘I’m not a racist’: Trump says he’s willing to make immigration deal, but Democrats killing it”

RT

Hardly anyone will buy President Donald Trump’s explanation for his abruptly canceled visit to London next month. The real reason, no doubt, was to avoid embarrassing scenes of mass street protests marring his official welcome.

Whatever has become of the so-called “special relationship”?

Nigel Farage, the former UKIP leader and one of the few British politicians who has openly befriended Trump, expressed embarrassment: “It’s disappointing. He’s been to countries all over the world and yet he’s not been to the one with whom he’s closest. I think it’s disappointing,” Farage told the BBC on the back of news over Trump’s cancelation.   Continue reading “Trump cancels UK visit… so much for the ‘special relationship’”

Mail.com

CHICAGO (AP) — Few people running for public office have been more personally affected by gun violence than Chris Kennedy, who was a child when his father and uncle, Sen. Robert Kennedy and President John F. Kennedy, were assassinated.

Now the 54-year-old Democrat has made the issue a centerpiece of his campaign for Illinois governor, talking often about growing up without a father and family trips to Arlington National Cemetery, and saying too many people in Chicago and elsewhere in Illinois are dealing with the same kind of pain.   Continue reading “Kennedy targets gun violence in Illinois governor campaign”

Mail.com

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Anti-poverty activists in Albuquerque and a groundbreaking Cherokee Nation declaration about the tribe’s role in promoting equality after years of fighting to exclude descendants of slaves from its rolls are part of the focus of Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrations.

At gatherings across the nation Monday, activists, residents and teachers are honoring the late civil rights leader ahead of the 50th anniversary of his assassination in Memphis, Tennessee. In Atlanta, King’s daughter, the Rev. Bernice King, will be the keynote speaker at a commemorative service honoring her father at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where he once preached.   Continue reading “Poverty, past linked to Native Americans focus on MLK Day”